Ted Hughes’s estate squares up to poet’s unauthorised biographer

The row over Jonathan Bate’s unauthorised Life of Ted Hughes is hotting up. Professor Bate originally embarked on the book with the blessing of the Hughes estate, but that blessing – along with permission to quote from the poet’s writings – was withdrawn.

Now the Hughes estate has issued a press release claiming to have identified a number of errors in the book – 18 in an 16 page sample – and requesting that the book be corrected and an apology made to Carol Hughes.

You can read it below.

The estate say that they have not yet had a response from Professor Bate or his publishers. I’ve emailed him for comment and will update this post as and when I hear back.

Most popular

Francis Pike

How the Black Death helped bring prosperity to Europe

UPDATE:

I have now received a response from his publishers HarperCollins:

‘In response to the recent statement from Carol Hughes, widow of the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, HarperCollins has issued the following statement:

HarperCollins stands by Jonathan Bate’s scholarly and masterly biography of Ted Hughes.